{"id":1261,"date":"2014-10-17T08:07:51","date_gmt":"2014-10-17T08:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gmarwaha.com\/blog\/?p=1261"},"modified":"2014-10-18T02:40:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-18T02:40:00","slug":"mobile-payments-what-is-google-wallet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gmarwaha.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/mobile-payments-what-is-google-wallet\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile Payments: What is Google Wallet?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is Google Wallet?<\/h4>\n
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Google Wallet is a mobile\/digital wallet<\/a> developed by Google. Their\u00a0grand vision probably is to replace the complete physical wallet with its virtual counterpart. They are not there yet, but in the process of marching towards their grand vision, they have created\u00a0a few important services. We will discuss them one by one in a moment.<\/p>\n

Google Wallet has been around since 2011 and has\u00a0seen at least 3 major revisions. Each version had a very different technical approach to\u00a0mobile payments mostly because of the politically difficult landscape that surrounds it. We will discuss each version, challenges faced and how they\u00a0achieve mobile payments in separate posts later. In this post, we will assume the third (and latest) version of Google Wallet.\u00a0This\u00a0version was\u00a0released along with Android Kit-Kat\u00a0and it uses\u00a0Host-based Card Emulation<\/a> instead of Secure Element<\/a> based Card Emulation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a consumer you can add your debit cards, credit cards, stored value cards, loyalty cards, gift cards etc. to your\u00a0Google Wallet account either on their website or using the Google Wallet app on your smartphone. You may even add some money directly\u00a0to your wallet account balance.<\/p>\n

Pay at\u00a0Physical POS:<\/h4>\n

Using this service, you can use your NFC<\/a> enabled Android<\/code> phone to purchase in-store by just tapping<\/a> your phone against a contactless terminal. The contactless terminals are not Google specific;\u00a0they already exist in the wild and support contactless cards<\/a> from Visa (PayWave) and MasterCard (PayPass). Google just uses the same standard protocols used by the\u00a0Contactless cards<\/a> so as to be\u00a0compatible with existing infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\"google-wallet-tap\"<\/p>\n

Google has also developed a proprietary protocol on top of existing Contactless protocols to support making payments, redeeming coupons\/offers and receiving loyalty all with just one tap. But for this to work, the merchants will have\u00a0to upgrade their terminal to explicitly support\u00a0Google’s own protocol.<\/p>\n

But there is a big challenge with contactless terminals. Today,\u00a0they\u00a0are not very common with retailers in the United States.\u00a0Most of the\u00a0retailers\u00a0still have only traditional Magnetic Stripe<\/a> terminals. Eventually,\u00a0the expectation is that\u00a0all merchants will have\u00a0a contactless terminal, but in the meantime, we need a solution. To fill this gap, Google Wallet also offers a Debit card from MasterCard that has a\u00a0Magnetic Stripe<\/a> interface. So,\u00a0if a merchant does not have a contactless terminal, you can\u00a0still use the Google Wallet\u00a0Debit card to make a payment.<\/p>\n

\"google-wallet-debit-card\"<\/p>\n

Pay Online:<\/h4>\n

Using this service, you can pay on eCommerce websites and mobile apps where you see the\u00a0Buy with Google<\/code> sign. Here, Google Wallet acts more like a digital wallet than like a mobile wallet.\u00a0Google offers different APIs\u00a0for\u00a0sale\u00a0of digital goods and sale of physical goods. The difference is that, for sale of digital goods, a seller need not have a separate relationship with a payment processor<\/a>. Google will take care of the payment processing as a whole. On the other hand, for sale of physical goods, a seller\u00a0would need to have a payment processor<\/a> and a merchant account with an Acquirer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"google-wallet-buy-with-google-2\"<\/p>\n

Pay Friends:<\/h4>\n

Using this service, you can use Google wallet to send money to anyone in the US with an email address. This service is generally used to pay friends, split\u00a0bills and sometimes referred to as\u00a0Person to Person payments or P2P\u00a0for short. Recently, Google also added the ability to send money as an email attachment when using\u00a0Gmail as the email provider.<\/p>\n

\"google-wallet-pay-friends\"<\/p>\n

Mobile Payments Blog Series<\/h4>\n
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Welcome to the Mobile payments FAQ and\u00a0not so FAQ<\/a>\u00a0series\u00a0and you are on FAQ\u00a0#16.\u00a0The idea behind this series is to\u00a0share and learn as much as possible about the field of mobile payments.\u00a0If you like, you can read all of the FAQs by visiting the Table of contents<\/a> page.<\/p>\n

Related Reading<\/h4>\n